


White Rose

by Haunt_Haunt_Haunt



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: ADHD Link, Ace Link, Bathing, F/M, Hot Spring, How Did It End Up So Serious?, Kakariko Village, Let's Accept That Mental Healthcare Exists in Hyrule, No Smut, Or At Least Diagnoses, This was supposed to be fun, Underage Nudity, but not graphic, late teens, why am i like this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27862618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haunt_Haunt_Haunt/pseuds/Haunt_Haunt_Haunt
Summary: Zelda decides to bathe while Link is away, except he isn't, and he has some advice for her.
Relationships: Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Kudos: 73





	White Rose

**Author's Note:**

> There is no underage tag because these characters aren't participating in explicit sexual activity. Don't @ me. I know the rules.
> 
> I own none of the characters, locations, themes. etc. Please don't sue.

She looked around, then looked around again. He looked to be pretty well gone this time. She told him that there were little magical vegetable monsters that liked to play pranks on people and he decided it was his duty to find them all. That was well enough with her. At least he wasn’t here.

She patted Storm then slid off her saddle, taking a look around the mountainside. It was fairly pleasant here on the hill overlooking Kakariko, and Link decided that she was close enough to the Sheikah and Impa that she could finally be left alone, which was great cause she really needed a bath. He was a good guy. A little slow on the uptake, but he had a good heart, and he wasn’t bad on the eyes either. Still, some things were too much, and as nice as he was she was trying to keep her distance. His job was to protect her, and feelings would complicate the matter. Besides, Mipha may have thought that she was being subtle, but everyone could see that she was into him.

She took one last glance around, then unfastened her belt and took off her tunic. She carefully folded it, then added her pants to it and her underwear then waded into the water. It came up to her collarbone. Impa assured her that no one came to this hot spring except her. It was just too out of the way, even if it did overlook the village, and what a good view it was. She waded her way over to the edge of the spring and looked down. The whole village was arrayed before her, the Sheikah going about their lives oblivious that the princess of Hyrule was above them. It was like being a voyeur of sorts, watching them like this. She was looking into their lives and they had no idea.

She could feel the muscles in her back start to loosen in the hot water and sighed a little as the tension slowly crept out of her body. They were a ways away from the castle, and they’d been traveling on horseback for the past few days. It doesn’t matter who you are, horses aren’t the most stable creatures and you can definitely get sore riding them. Her thighs ached in testament to that. She was lucky she wasn’t chafing, but it’d been dry as well, thank the Goddess.

She leaned back in the water and ran her fingers through her hair, getting out some of the tangles and oils, then went over to the bank where she’d put her pack and dug in it, looking for the soap she brought. There was a splash behind her and the water went everywhere, dousing her, her bag, and her dry clothes. She stopped and whirled covering herself. Link popped up out of the water and frowned. “Man, I thought for sure…” he said to himself.

“What in the name of the Goddess are you doing!?” Zelda screamed. He turned like he hadn’t even registered that she was there, then rubbed at the back of his neck. “Oh hey, Princess. I was looking for those Korok thingies you mentioned. I figured I had some free time.”

“I have no clothes on!”

He blinked, then shrugged. “‘Kay.” He said, then climbed out of the water, dripping. He hadn’t even bothered to strip down. He even still had his sword and shield on his back. He took them off when he got out of the water and dropped them on the ground, then put his fists on his hips and looked up where he’d jumped from, then down at the water. Then he shrugged and took off his shirt, wringing it out. He didn’t even spare her a second glance. One track mind.

“Link, are you gonna leave?”

“Do I need to?”

She looked at him, her mouth hanging open for a moment “I… I’m naked. I’m bathing.”

“I see that.” He put the shirt out on the grass then sat, taking off his boots and dumping them out. He didn’t bother to put them back on, leaning back on his palms. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“That’s not the point! Aren’t you gonna go look for more Koroks?”

“Nah. I think we got lucky when we found that one, and I’m tired,” He fell back on his back and put his hands behind his head, propping his knees up. He was completely and totally uninterested in her state of undress, and she didn’t know if she should be relieved or upset. Was she not appealing, or was he just stupid? Honestly, it could be a bit of both. He wasn’t the sharpest sword in the armory. Mipha was talking about how she wanted to kiss him, and she was basically gonna have to grab him and make him do it because he’d been oblivious to all of her advances. That or maybe he was Ace. That was a possibility that she hadn’t considered either.

Either way, he wasn’t paying attention to her, so she slowly lowered her arms again and went back to her pack. God, it was soaked. Everything was wet. She sighed. She was gonna wash her clothes anyway, but now she was gonna have to wait for the spares to dry out. She pulled them from her bag and laid them out on the grass. At least it was sunny, so they should dry relatively quickly. She then grabbed her soap and lifted herself out of the spring, running it over her body and working up a lather.

“So Princess…”

She froze. Her back was to him, but she still felt terribly exposed. Was he watching her? “Yes?”

“When are we going to Mount Lanayru and the Spring of Wisdom? It’s not far from here.”

“Well, you know the rules. No one under seventeen is allowed to go.”

“When have you cared about the rules?”

She turned and looked at him over her shoulder. He was lying on his side, looking out across the village with his back to her. At least he had some modicum of decorum. That and he probably realized she was uncomfortable and was being polite. He really was pretty in profile. She wanted to paint him. To capture his features. She’d never tell him how physically attractive he was to her. Alas, even if he agreed to be painted, there was no way he’d sit still for as long as it took. He was a bundle of energy. That and he had severe ADHD. That was a good thing when they were out in the field. He was vigilant and kept things interesting, but it also led to a lot of restlessness when they were at home.

“I didn’t mean that as an insult, of course. I’d never insult you.”

She frowned, then got a good lather in her hands and started to run them through her hair, sitting and putting her feet back in the pool. The soap on her legs drifted away in the little eddies that her feet made as she kicked them gently back and forth. “I know. I didn’t take it as one.”

“But like, even in the castle, you still do research on the guardians, even when your dad tells you not to. You do research on the Sheikah Slate. You do research on the shrines. You were specifically told not to, yet you do. It just doesn’t seem in your character or nature to care about a rule that no one is there to enforce.”

She finished with her hair then slid back in the pool. That was pretty insightful, especially for him. “It’s not that I’m worried about my father. It’s more that I have to think about what it means to the people. The people don’t care that I research ancient technology, but they absolutely would care if I went and broke our traditions. They already think I’m a failure.”

He rolled and looked at her. His blue eyes were like looking into the facets of the Zora’s Sapphire itself. He wasn’t looking at her body. He was looking at her face, and for some reason, it felt even more intimate, and she looked away, feeling the blood rush to her face. How did he get that reaction?

“You’re not a failure.”

He said it with such certainty that it actually shook her a little. Did he care that much about how she viewed herself? He was pretty wishy-washy on most things, but something about the way he said that, it made her swell with pride. Her knight, her companion, her champion believed in her.

“Maybe discovering your power is taking some time, but you’ve been doing it all without a teacher. You can use magic. Sure your divinity hasn’t awakened, but you excel at other things, especially research. You aren’t a failure. You just bloomed white instead of red. You’re just a different colored rose. That doesn’t make you a failure. A rose is still a rose.”

That meant… so much to hear. She looked down at the water. Her whole life she’d heard ‘Why can’t you.” Now she was hearing “You can.” It was liberating and terrifying at the same time. Maybe there was more to Link than she’d originally thought. All this time, she thought that he was just a rich kid that had never had to work a day in his life, but while he was gullible and not all that bright, he was intelligent in his own way. She had judged him and considered him a failure, and this whole time he’d believed in her. Now she felt like an ass. Some of the soap ran in her eyes and started to sting, so she leaned back and washed it. When she looked at him, he was watching her. His eyes glanced to hers and he looked away, rolling back over so that he could look out across the village.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

She went over to the ledge and rested her hand on his shoulder. He didn’t pull away. “Am I not pleasing?”

“No princess. You’re incredibly pleasing. That’s why I looked away. No man should behold such a sight.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! If you liked it, smash that Kudos button. Sorry it got so serious. I'll put out a light-hearted one in a few days. Thanks for reading!


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